Christmas with Madeline, Roman and Ivan

 We did our traditional Christmas activities.  I made a new stocking for Nathan since his stocking got wrecked a few years ago.  

The one on the right is the new one.

Madeline, Roman, and Ivan drove down Christmas Eve but we did not see them until dinner on Christmas day.  Nathan & I had a great time cooking dinner.  It was a "thanksgiving-type" dinner, with sweet potato brulee, mushroom stuffing, red wine cranberry sauce, creamed spinach, teriyaki salmon, bread, and pecan pie,  What a yummy meal.  

1-year-old Ivan

Our get-togethers were around Ivan's sleep schedule.  

Merry Christmas from Blanca.  

We had snow Christmas day!!

Yup, we had snow.

Ivan

The day after Christmas we got together for lunch near the AirBnB that Madeline and family stayed at.  Then they joined us for dinner.  The next day we met for lunch before they headed back to Bellevue. What a nice visit. 

Rebecca missed it since she was still at the San Francisco airport.  She has just been approached once by a security guard, who gave her a free bus pass to a homeless shelter. She ignored this.  It has been 6 weeks.

Zoo Lights

 We met Gretchen on Friday, December 10th to go to the zoo lights. We had timed entry tickets for a "walk through" day. Some days are set up for drive through only.  We met at the front area, thinking that we would do dinner first and then walk through the zoo but that ended out not working.  The restaurant near the front entrance was closed.  So we got hot naughty beverages to tide us over.  

There was a restaurant open, halfway though the walk.  We sat down for a while and ate.  

George, Gretchen, Nathan

It was a nice event.  It is always a pleasure to spend time with Gretchen.

A Sad Day.

 Our cat, Gemini, has been failing for quite some time. She go down hill and then she would perk up, but she finally hit a point when she was no longer eating.  So we decided that it was time to end her suffering. She was 17 years old and had always been a very playful kitty.  It was a tough decision.  We made an appointment for Thursday, Dec 9th.  Nathan was able to come as well.  They normally do not allow 3 people to go in at one time to the vet, but they made an exception. 

We will miss her.  She was a very sweet kitty.

Sunday and home

 We had breakfast at the hotel.  We checked out and headed over to Madeline and Roman's place.  Ivan had just woken up from his morning nap. 

 He had lunch.   

It was time for his next nap, so we went for a walk around the neighborhood and to check out the close park.

Nathan, Ed, Dorothy and George

The clubhouse of the apartment complex

Their apartment.  It is nice that it is so woodsie.

Once we got back to the apartment it was time for our lunch.  We pulled out all of the left-overs and had another feast.

We left about 1 pm to drive home.  We went through sun and rain but at least it was not dark.   

Coming into Oregon

Mt Hood

We got home about 4:30 pm.  Nathan headed off back to his apartment.  The neighbors did a great job of cat care.

Saturday

We had brought breakfast type foods with us so we ate in our hotel room. We hung out in the hotel room until Ivan woke up from his morning nap. We headed over around 10:30 am.  

The hotel staff were putting up the Christmas decorations when we arrived yesterday.  They are all up now.  Looks very festive.

Ivan and Nathan

The plan was to go to the Cougar Mountain Zoo.  Madeline was not feeling well so she stayed home.  "Small zoo focusing on endangered species, especially big cats & exotic birds, and with a sculpture forest."

Cougars

Lemurs

Sculpture garden

Feeding the Alpacas with apple chunks, which Nathan had bought. 

This one looked almost scary

Ed and George

Roman and Ivan

Crowned Crane

Wallabies

Emu

Macaws, I am surprised that they didn't fly away.  They cage them at night, but here they are not caged.

Sleeping wolf

Pacing wolf

Tigers

Ed and Dorothy

The youngest, he will play Rudolf at the festival.

Great zoo.  It was small but laid out well.  They have a big reindeer festival starting Dec 1.  We will miss that.  It was also a perfect day to go.  It was a little misty but not raining.  Very few people were there.

The house in back is owned by the family who used to own the land of the zoo.  They donated the property for the zoo.   They have a great view of the valley.

Once we got back to the apartment we fixed left-overs for lunch.  It was time for Ivan's nap, so we headed back to the hotel.  George and Dorothy went to get a few grocery items.

Dorothy came to our room for a visit.  We hung out, relaxed, and played some games. Dorothy and Ed treated us all to dinner.  We ordered Indian food from the Taj Palace.  It was very close.  It was hard to make a decision of what to order.

We went to pick up the food on our way over to Madeline and Roman's.  

Quite a spread.  It was delicious.

Madeline was not feeling much better.

Ivan and Dorothy

Once Roman and Madeline took Ivan back for bath and bed, the rest of us played "Marrying Mr. Darcy".  Well, I guess we could not talk Ed into joining us.  It is a fun game based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Nathan won.